Whenever I do a post on 'rating' this general, or that general: the comments usually come down to 'but at this battle they failed, whereas at this battle such and such succeeded'. These comments almost always try to compare apples with oranges, suggesting that someone good at open field pursuit with little opposition, would have done better at an invasion than someone brilliant at tight defensive battles who never commanded a successful advance. In fact the opposite would be more likely, with someone who has good knowledge of how to fight tight engagements probably much better at an invasion than someone who had only ever pursued broken enemies with loose formations in open spaces. Their specific knowledge bases are probably more important than the fact that one had possibly seen only victory, and the other only defeat.

The truth is that any successful high command should maximise the chances of success of any campaign by choosing the 'best fit' for the job.

But that is not how generals were chosen for D Day.

(I would love to start with divisional commanders, but there are way to many, so for space I will start with Corps and Army commanders, and work up to the top).

The outstanding Canadian of the campaign for instance was Guy Simonds. Described by many as the best Allied Corps commander in France, and credited with re-invigorating the Canadian Army HQ when he filled in while his less successful superior Harry Crerar was sick, Simonds was undoubtedly the standout Canadian officer in both Italy and France.

He was however, the youngest Canadian division, corps or army commander, and the speed of his promotions pushed him past many superiors. He was also described as 'cold and uninspiring' even by those who called him 'innovative and hard driving'. It can be taken as a two edged sword that Montgomery thought he was excellent (presumably implying Montgomery like qualities?) But his promotions seemed more related to ability than cronyism, and his achievements were undoubted.

Should he have been the Canadian Army commander instead of Crerar? Yes. Arguments against were mainly his lack of seniority, and lack of experience. but no Canadian had more experience, and lack of seniority was no bar in most of the other Allied armies.

It comes down to the simple fact that the Allied cause would have been better served by having Simonds in charge of Canadian forces than Crerar.

The most interesting British Corps commander was Neil Ritchie. Interesting because he had previously been given unexpected command of Eighth Army at a crucial point of the desert war, and been sacked for failing in this role. In fact his appointment from HQ officer over the heads of many senior battlefield commanders in 1942 had been supposed to be a temporary one, and Brooke had been appalled at such a junior officer being thrown in way over his head and 'damaged'. Once sacked, he was returned to England, where Brooke carefully built him back up through divisional and then corps command, to make him ready for re-entering the war at an appropriate level.

Few would say that Ritchie was the most brilliant corps commander on the allied side, but he did a much better job than many of his contemporaries. His 'reconditioning' proved to be a worthwhile development (underlining how his earlier failure reflects more on his superiors than on him).

Was he the right man for the job? Yes, both due to his undoubted (if painful) past experience, and to his natural ability which had overcome such a past.

As an interesting comparison Gerard Bucknall was sacked as commander of the British XXX Corps during the campaign by the man who had appointed him, Montgomery again. Bucknall had served competently in North Africa, and impressed Montgomery as a divisional commander in Sicily and Italy, but Alan Brooke as CIGS felt that he was unsuitable as a Corps commander, and experience was to suggest that (as usual) Brooke was correct.

Montgomery sacked Bucknall for repeated failures during the breakout operations, and, fortunately, Brian Horrocks had recuperated enough from his North African injuries to take over and re-invigorate XXX Corps for the rest of the war. Brooke didn't hold this sacking against Bucknall, and appointed him commander of Northern Ireland for the rest of the war. Another example of accepting men at their ability levels, and not blaming them for being pushed beyond them.

Horrocks was definitely the right man for a corps command, as he had proved in North Africa, and was to prove again. If he had not been wounded (by a strafing fighter) at Tunisia, he might have been the right man to be army commander too. He certainly was by far the most experienced corps commander, having fought from Alemein to Tunisia, and then from Normandy to the Rhur. It is possible to suggest that he would have been a better commander of the British 2nd Army than Dempsey... if not for his being out injured for a critical year.

Another possibility for British 2nd Army commander was O'Connor, who instead served as commander of VIII Corps. O'Connor was THE outstanding corps commander of the first half of the war, with achievements in North Africa that only Patton came close to matching later. Of course both O'Connor and Patton achieved their most dramatic successes against the Italians, not against the Germans, but both are masters of high speed manoeuvre.

Having said that, O'Connor also succeeded in breaking fortified lines several times in North Africa – a role that Patton notably failed in at the Metz (though we might note that O'Connor faced Italians, and Patton Germans). So O'Connor had been a brilliant Corps commander before most other Allied generals had led a division, and might have been considered a better choice for Army command too.

Unfortunately O'Connor had spent two years in captivity during the middle of the war, and there is some doubt that he was up to even corps command in France. He certainly performed competently – who with his experience would not have – but he lacked the fire of his previous command.

It is also possible that freewheeling corps commander was actually his metier, and army command might have been beyond him? perhaps if he had not had those two years in captivity he may have developed into a good army commander. But he did, and thus he didn't.

Was he the right man in the right place? He was certainly a safe pair of hands, and it was sensible to give him a key role at the start. He proved uninspiring after that, and it was perhaps also sensible to replace him with better goers later. An interesting debate could trend either way, but all in all it was probably sensible to rely on his experience until others proved themselves.

'Lightning Joe' Collins was one of the best of the American corps commanders for the campaign in France, not only through natural ability, but through sheer experience. He commanded the 25th Division on Gudalcanal and then on New Georgia before transferring to Europe to provide a bit of genuine combat experience, and he commanded VII Corps throughout the campaign extremely competently. He was a prime example of using safe and experienced hands to lead new or inexperienced troops into combat. His leadership of Operation Cobra finally allowed inexperienced US units to break experienced (if depleted) German troops, and converted the Normandy siege into the great trans-France pursuit.

Definitely one of the best men for the job in France.

By contrast Leonard Gerow proved to be very competent despite his lack of combat experience. A contemporary of Bradley (who was second to him in the Advanced Course at Infantry School) and Eisenhower (who was his study partner at Command and General Staff school), there was no reason he could not have finished senior to both, rather than staying a corps commander for his few months of operations. Such is fate.

But he turned out to be a good choice for his role, and proved a safe pair of hands despite his inexperience. A man who might have been a good army commander with more experience.

Interestingly Charles Corlett did not bring XIX corps into action until after the invasion was successful. This is fascinating because he had commanded two successful invasions in the Pacific – Kisku, which proved to be a non event because the Japanese had left, and the much tougher Kwajalein operation, often called 'the most nearly perfect' of all US invasions in the pacific war. Why such a proven invasion commander (he was later to be tasked with planning to invade Japan) was not used for the actual invasion is an interesting question. Clearly he might have been better at that than less experienced contemporaries?

Which raises the fundamental question, why was the single most experienced and successful American invader (North Africa, Sicily, Italy.. twice) Lucian Truscott, not brought up for the most important invasion of the war? He was a proven corps performer, with vastly greater experience than even the Pacific veterans, and deservedly got an army of his own in 1944. Not only was he the outstanding choice for a corps commander for an invasion, he would have been a vastly superior choice as Army commander to the less experienced (and less competent) Bradley or Hodges.

Admittedly he was pretty hotly engaged in Italy at the time. (And admittedly, his presence had repeatedly saved the situation when other less competent generals had screwed things up), but he was the standout invasion specialist in the US army. If Marshall genuinely believed that Italy was a wasted sideshow, and everything should be focused on France, his being left in the secondary theatre was a pretty strange choice.

Should he have been there? Definitely. Was it possibly helpful that one competent leader was left in 5th army? Probably. Perhaps we need to accept that the best available was simply not available?

There are other corps commanders, but lets move on to the army leaders.

Harry Crerar has been mentioned . Pedestrian might be an acceptable phrase. He was not completely incompetent, but he inspired no one, and his achievements were made to look poor in the few months that Simonds got to stir his command up. Was he the wrong man in the wrong place? Yes.

Miles Dempsey is interesting. Proved quite competent in the end, but hardly inspiring. The need to leave Leese with 8th army and Slim with 14th was probably necessary, and he certainly had a background with combined ops and invasions, but possibly more inspiring leaders were available (Horrocks and O'Connor have already been mentioned), but taking all things into consideration, Dempsey was possibly a safe choice form the dozen or so experienced corps commanders quite ready to run an army. His well organised and fast (200 miles in a single day) pursuit of the defeated Germans across France was actually faster than Patton achieved against considerably less opposition.

Was he the right man for the job? Well he was certainly a competent choice.

Which is quite a contrast to Courtney Hodges, who appears a fairly incompetent choice. He had flunked out of West Point as a young man before re-enlisting as a private and working his way up. As such his final role commanding US 1st Army is quite an achievement. However he led it into battle despite having no combat experience since leading a platoon for a couple of weeks of combat in WW1. He was astonishingly highly thought of by Eisenhower considering his lack of achievement, and Montgomery was at one point amazed to realise that US 1st army had 20+ divisions assigned (bigger than most army group HQ's could handle successfully) whereas US 9th army next door had less divisions assigned than most corps.

Hodges advance across France was nothing special, except for a fairly major disaster called 'the battle of the bulge', where his army survived more due to the individual toughness of a few units, than to any leadership from above. (Monty's contact officers arrived at his HQ to find it completely abandoned, but with all the maps still on the walls... When they finally chased him down, he had taken to his bed in what might have been considered a nervous collapse.)

Hodges next great effort was the disastrous battle of the Heurtgen Forest, one of the last great German defensive victories of the war, and an absolute bloodbath for American forces. (It was later excused on the 'vital need' to capture two damns... but that 'need' was not apparently discovered until the battle was almost over, and the recriminations already mounting.)

Did Hodges have the experience, or skill to run an army? There is little evidence that he did. Did he cause it enormously greater casualties than a more experienced general might have? Almost certainly inarguable. Was he the wrong man in the wrong place? Yes.

By contrast William Simpson might have been a good choice for 1st army, as he proved for 9th army when it came on line. A soldier with actual combat experience in the Philippines, and WW1, he proved a competent and safe pair of hands, particularly in reacting swiftly and smoothly to the Battle of the Bulge. He also worked very smoothly with the difficult Montgomery after that, and was highly rated by Monty as the most competent US general he dealt with during the war.

Should he have been given more experience before getting such a key position? Yes. Did he cope well considering his lack of experience? Very. Was he the right man for such a role? Probably not, but he performed well enough to deserve praise.

Alexander Patch was one of the few American army leaders who were promoted from experienced corps leaders who had seen a lot of combat. His efforts with a division and later corps on Guadalcanal meant he had experience to go with his role. He was hardly outstanding, but certainly a safe pair of hands for such a role. It is interesting that he got an army when Collins and Corlett did not, even though they probably had superior claims to him.

George Patton was of course the other army leader who had seen some actual combat, but that is the only thing you can say about him that won't cause debate. Personally I think he would have been a better choice for Army group commander than his ex-subordinate/now superior Bradley, but that is no great compliment to either.

Patton had a genuine 'nose' for assessing what was going on in combat. On the other hand I think he is hugely over-rated as an army commander, in that he was only ever successful in pursuit of defeated foes.

Despite the propaganda in the film about him, he had nothing to do with the Germans pulling back after Kasserine. He did get to swan around in Sicily collecting Italians who were lining up to surrender as fast as possible, and he also got to go on a scenic cruise through France when there was no opposition to his advance. He proved very competent at pushing such advances, and was happy to make or mend (or steal) anything to keep momentum going. With experience, he might have made a good all round general.

But his only real testing against an enemy prepared and willing to fight was at the Metz, where he failed dismally. Given that this came within days of his 'shit through a goose speech', the fact that he was stopped cold for months and could think of nothing to do about it (to the extent of eventually going to sulk in Paris for weeks), argues against him being a great general.

He was in the right place to lead the troops after the breakout, but he was probably too inexperienced in combat to be given a role that should have gone to Truscott or Collins or Corlett instead.

Wrong man for the job.

Jean De Lattre de Tassigny was definitely the right man. A very experienced combat professional, and one who had the honour of being described by his German opponent in 1940 as having led men who performed like those at Verdun in the previous war. He fought in North Africa, Sardinia, Italy, and France (and later was one of the few success stories in Vietnam), and was always efficient and effective. Right man for the job, and possibly a better candidate to command the US/French Army group than Devers.

Jacob Devers was the Army Group commander no one has heard of. Despite having run all US Army Armoured units for most of the war, he had no real combat experience before being thrown in to command an army group in the invasion of Southern France and the fight up to Germany. Despite being one of the best organisers and administrators and trainers available to the US Army, he had little background to deal with a combined US/French army group, and struggled to stay in charge of the French component (though many others might have too in the last months of the war).

Was he the right man for the job? Probably not. Certainly it is a shame to think how much better he would have been running Eisenhower's logistics than the appalling Lee turned out to be. His skills could have been better employed. But on the other hand, by the time he got into action there was little that he could have done to undermine things anyway.

Certainly a better man than his lack of recognition deserves, despite his lack of experience for such a role.

Omar Bradley is easier. Out of his depth.

He had been quite good running a corps in Sicily, against no opposition from Italians who wanted to surrender. But it can hardly be said that a month of such operations made him an experienced combat leader.

Perhaps if he had been left as an army commander he might have proved competent (with careful mentoring). But he had to be gently pushed to concentrate adequately to achieve things for the breakout, and then he operated like a junior corps commander directing traffic.

Was he experienced enough to run an army group? No. Was he good at it? No. Hodges was poor, Patton did as he liked, and Bradley's organisation and control failed to control them, let alone lead them. He wandered between sitting at Eisenhower's side whinging about not being able to communicate with most of his armies after being caught out at 'the battle of the bulge', to telling Patton he would 'stay away from the telephone' so Eisenhower couldn't order him to stop Patton's insubordination.

Bradley would have been an excellent divisional commander. With more practice, he looked like making a very good corps commander. He was an inexperienced and inadequate army commander. As Army group commander he was terribly out of his depth.

Montgomery... Oh God, Montgomery!

Montgomery was the most experienced, skilled and competent Army or Army Group commander in Europe (or indeed the world). He was absolutely the right person to be commanding an army, and seemed to be quite good at commanding an army group.

But he was not a good choice for 'Land Forces Commander'. He was simply the wrong personality to work with the group such a role needed to co-ordinate.

Nor did he have the strategic vision to relate a tactical campaign to the overall situation.

Having said that, having him as army group commander of the initial invasion, was probably sensible. It needed one strong experienced and unpanicked hand, and even Eisenhower and Bradley (hardly admirers) later admitted that invasion might not have worked at all without him.

And having him as land forces commander afterwards, despite his weaknesses and the trouble it would cause, would still have been better than not having one at all.

But not much.

(In fact his personality was so difficult he may well have caused almost as much damage as Eisenhower's HQ was managing anyway... If not adequately controlled... which meant NOT by eisenhower.)

Was Monty the right man in the right place? Yes. Did he NEED a strong commander? Yes. Did he get one? No. Was that his fault? .... Well again, don't blame a subordinate if his superiors stuff things up...

Monty was correct of course that someone had to do the job of land forces commander, and that it would be better to give it even to someone relatively incompetent like Bradley, than simply pretend it was not necessary.

In fact he would have been happy to have Ike's preferred choice, Alexander, who had never inspired Monty with confidence, but who at least knew what the job entailed, and had an unrivalled ability to get people to work together. (Yes, better than Ike's ability... much better.)

What was absolutely vital was someone who could concentrate on the land battle while the Supreme Commander played politics.

Who was qualified to be land forces commander? Bloody good question.

Alexander is the default choice. He had done it before, and made it work. Was he the best choice? No. too soft and conciliatory, and earlier in the war his juniors (Monty, Patton, Clarke) played him the way Patton later played Bradley. But there are signs that after a few years of experience he was maturing, and might have been up to the job. (Or at least more up to it than anyone else available.)

Who might have done it better? Alan Brooke of course. Possibly his successor at home army Bernard Paget, who, despite limited modern combat experience in Norway, had enormous experience training and organising the invasion armies. Or even Henry 'Jumbo' Wilson who, despite being thrown out of Greece, and running an uninspiring Syrian campaign before taking over 10th army, had at least seen modern combat on large fronts. Otherwise William Slim, the Australian John Lavarack, or perhaps even an experienced American army commander like Robert Eichelberger. Even the inexperienced Devers at lest had the managerial ability to get something done.

As Monty said, anyone would have been better than no one.

Which leaves Supreme Allied Commander.

Much is said about Eisenhowers great strengths. He certainly had buckets of charm, a great work ethic, and an unrivalled ability to co-ordinate disparate characters.

Less is said about his weaknesses. His charm hid ignorance of military affairs; his overwork reduced him to a nervous chain smoking wreck; and his attempts to jolly people along meant he failed to control (or sack) Lee, Patton, Montgomery, or anyone of the many others who eventually gave up on waiting for sensible leadership and just started doing their own thing. (That's unfair, he did threaten to sack Monty... once. Probably the only time of many he needed to make a stand that he actually did... and it would have achieved nothing if he had done it.)

It is inconceivable that anyone as inexperienced and unskilled at military operations as Eisenhower should have been left to play the role of land forces commander... or to pretend he was doing so given that no one actually did the job properly anyway. He did not have the knowledge, experience, or temperament, to command armies in the field.

So his first failure to be an adequate Supreme Commander is that he didn't understand he needed competent subordinates, run by a competent subordinate, and working to a competent plan.

Tens of thousands of casualties can be scored up to this fundamental failing.

So lets imagine for a minute that he had the sense to insist on having Alexander run things, and had concentrated on his actual job. Could he have been a success at being Supreme commander if he wasn't failing at ground forces commander?

Again, probably not. His failure to control or inspire his subordinates is evident from the above. But his failures in the geo-political sphere are even more depressing.

This was the man who had insisted an invasion of France was possible in 1942 when he was at war plans division, only to want to stop an invasion of Sicily in 1943 if 2 more German divisions showed up. This was the man who failed to convince the French leadership (in Gibraltar pre North Africa, in North Africa post that invasion, or in France post that invasion), or the Italian leadership (during surrender negotiations) to play ball in a sensible way. Combine that with his disastrous approach to abandoning Central Europe to the Russians when he could have saved much of it, and you get the impression that he should not have been playing politics at all.

(Which is amusing, because he turned out to be a much better President than he was a general.)

Again, who were better choices?

Again, Alan Brooke, obviously. A much, much more experienced combat leader, and corps, army, army group, and home army commander, with incredible geo-political skill and negotiating experience. (Also a French born, French speaking officer who had fought over very inch of Northern France in two wars.) More importantly, a man who Montgomery, and everyone else, absolutely obeyed, and whose tongue lashings they both feared and respected.

There is no chance that a campaign run by him would have had half the problems Eisenhower's HQ managed to create.

Anyone else? Well again, on the basis that if the person had concentrated on their real job, anyone was better than no one, the list of more experienced and competent generals/admirals (not saying much really), is pretty endless.... Alexander, Auchinlek, Blamey, Brooke, Cunningham, Devers, Mountbatten, Nimitz, Ramsay, Spatz, Wavell, Wilson, etc, etc.

The weakest part of that list is Alexander who, as noted, may have been coming along anyway. (His final campaign in Italy was a masterpiece, so it appears he had learn't something).

But the key element is that with Brooke providing the brains and giving clear directions, Alexander would be free to co-ordinate operations. And no one, least of all Montgomery, was going to question Brooke's orders.

Would the war have finished quicker with that list? Yes.

Would there have been less casualties? Probably.

Would Central Europe have been saved from the Russians? Almost certainly.

Would more of Germany finished up in Western hands? Unlikely given pre-arrangements, but possibly.

Would the post war settlement have been better? Very likely.

Would German soldiers have had more chance to surrender to the West rather than fight to the end against the Russians? Definitely.

Was an earlier surrender, or even another coup attempt, more likely? Here's hoping.

But let's repeat the main one... Earlier finish with less casualties? Yes.

PS: Amusingly Patton too (had he got a guernsey as a corps or army commander) would have been delighted to have Brooke in charge. No chance of a broad front strategy, plenty of opportunity for 'blitzkrieg' tactics instead, and no chance of not pursuing the Germans into central Europe. Patton, who had the best geo-political sense of any American general except MacArthur, would have loved it!

Friday, August 22, 2014

(Some of this is taken from a previous post on Statistical Issues.)Left us start with the issue of tanks from the perspective of propaganda. More rubbish has been written about who had the best tanks during the Second World War than about any other topic to do with that war. Again and again you get supposedly serious historians talking about how the Germans started the Second World War with overwhelming tank superiority; that the Allies were only brought back into the race by the arrival of the Sherman tank; and how German technology leapt ahead again at the end of the Second World War to give them unrivalled vehicles. All these statements are of course completely incorrect.

One of the problems of course, is 'best tank when, and for what?'

Comparing what was available in 1939/40 to what was being produced in 1945 (say a Panzer III or Matilda II with a Centurion or Stalin), is worse than useless. There is no comparison. Only the Panzer IV was actually produced throughout the war: and the heavily armoured final version of the tank – with a long barrelled 75mm gun capable of taking on almost every tank yet operational in mid 1945 – bore only a passing resemblance to the lightly armoured tank with a short barrelled infantry support gun – of with minimal ability to do more than scratch the paint of a CharB in 1939/40.

The best tank in the world in 1939 was the French Somua 35 (closely followed by the FrenchCharB). These tanks were, for the period, the best armed, armoured, and most mechanically reliable vehicles available. They repeatedly demonstrated their complete invulnerability to the standard German tank and anti-tank guns, and were often able to destroy large numbers of German tanks, before eventually being themselves destroyed by hastily deployed German heavy artillery or anti-aircraft guns. There are records of single French tanks taking over 130 hits from German anti-tank guns, while blithely cruising around destroying German tanks, vehicles, and guns.

The main fault to be had with the French tanks however, was their one-man turret. It may have had a 47 mm gun capable of knocking out any German tank of the period, but it meant that the tank commander had responsibility for loading, aiming, and firing, as well as directing his own tank, and those of the other units in his squadron. Given that far too few tanks had radio, the magnificent equipment was always left down by command and control techniques.

Fortunately for the allies, the best tank of 1940 was the British Matilda II. Not only did it have armour invulnerable to any German gun except their heavy anti-aircraft artillery - the famous 88 mm - it also had a 40 mm gun capable of defeating any German tank of the period, and the magnificent advantage of a three-man turret with proper radio facilities. Unfortunately for the allies, there were only a few dozen of these available in northern France. Not nearly enough to turn the tide. They did however have the crucial effect of scaring the German divisional commander (one Erwin Rommel) into pulling back and re-fortifying his position rather than advancing after the Arras counter-attack; and an equally stellar affect on the German high command who froze Panzer operations for a few crucial days to let infantry catch up, and then refused permission for the Panzers to be wasted in the tax on the evacuating British and French forces at Dunkirk.

A minor sidelight here. I have always had trouble with history books, or indeed with graduates of various army training schools, who hold that Hitler should have allowed his tanks to roll over the Allies at Dunkirk. They manage to ignore several important details. The German blitzkrieg worked against second-rate troops, and only became a rout when they found their way into rear at areas with inadequate lines of defence. The German tanks facing the more professional Allied forces in Belgium were beaten off time and again with significant casualties. The idea that the Germans would have been effective in attacking the cream of the Allied forces, well-equipped with artillery, anti-tank guns, and tanks, in what would effectively become street fighting (the worst possible offensive terrain for tanks), is highly dubious. The fact that most of the German tanks had just completed several hundred kilometers of fast movement and now needed major maintenance was also an issue. As was Hitler’s quite sensible belief that it was more important to redeploy them to finish off France, than to waste them against desperate men in a fortified port.

The Matilda and its successor the Valentine would probably still the best Allied tanks in the world in early 1941, when they swept Italian forces before them, and several times fought the German African corps to a standstill. The German response to their shocking failures in 1940, had been to upgrade the Panzer III and IV with slightly improved armour, and the short barreled 50 mm gun. But they were still on a losing wicket engaging the British infantry tanks in any sort of close terrain, such as in the siege of Tobruk. Fortunately for Rommel, out in the open terrain of the desert he could deploy his tanks behind screens of high-powered anti- tank guns, which the British tanks lacked the long-range high explosive shells to engage effectively.

This is where the myth of the value of the Sherman tank comes from. The Sherman arrived at a time when it’s armour and weapon were on a par with the Panzer III and IV tanks that it was facing. Despite the fact that its 75 mm gun was greatly inferior as an anti-tank weapon to the new British six pounder guns that were starting to equip British tanks, the high explosive shell that the Sherman could fire was incredibly useful for engaging Rommel’s 88 mm guns at long-distance in the flat desert terrain.

For several months, it seemed as though the mechanically reliable Sherman would be a war winner, despite its notable tendency to explode in flames whenever it was hit. (Allied troops refer to it as a Ronson - “lights first time every time”. German troops just referred to it as a “Tommy Cooker”.) But this concept was fantasy, which could be easily demonstrated within a few months, though it took the US government another two years to admit it.

Within months of the Sherman arriving on the battlefield. the Panzer IV had been upgraded to a long barrelled 75, and the result, as many commentators have noted, "was more than a match for any contemporary Allied tank".

Worse was to be revealed in the Tunisia campaigns, where the Sherman’s came up against the Tiger tank (a response to the brilliant Russian T34), which was almost completely invulnerable to their 75 mm guns. (The British were very grateful that their more efficient six pounder anti-tank weapons were already being reinforced by the magnificent new 17 pounder anti-tank weapons which could deal with these monsters.) Nonetheless American authorities apparently learnt nothing from this campaign. (To be fair the British were also working on the assumption that a six pounder anti-tank gun would be adequate tank armament to see out the war at this point.) However the Italian campaign revealed conclusively that shorter range engagements against more heavily armed and armoured vehicles made the Sherman completely obsolete. Even the much more heavily armoured British Churchill, with it’s astonishing cross country ability and acceptable 6 pounder was not adequate.

The British response was surprisingly fast (considering how slowly things had changed in the past), not only designing and manufacturing 17 pounder version of the Cromwell from scratch in time to have some available for the D-Day landings; but also developing a version of the Sherman that carried the 17 pounder gun. This latter – the Sherman Firefly – was offered to the Americans, along with all the other ‘funnies’ that Percy Hobart had designed for the campaign, but again American military authorities - particularly General Omar Bradley - felt that none of this was necessary. (See casualties at Omaha compared to British/Canadian landings. For the rest of the war the Americans had to borrow British ‘funnies’ for assault operations.)

The campaigning Normandy showed even more thoroughly how ineffective the standard Sherman was as an assault tank, but still American authorities insisted that swapping from a 75 mm to a 76 mm gun would be enough to see out the war. The new gun was significantly better, giving the Americans and the equivalent anti-tank firepower to the British six pounder (which had been recognized as being insufficient for two years in British service) or the Russian 85mm. However the weapon was nowhere near as efficient as the 17 pounder which the British now had in more than half their tanks and self-propelled anti-tank guns.

In all of this so far, I have barely mentioned the Russians at all. Their T34 tank was possibly the single most effective of the war, and was the breakthrough that forced everyone else to rethink their designs. So we can say without a shadow of a doubt that the T34 was the best tank of the war for almost two years – from the time of Barbarossa (June 22, 1941) until the appearance of the Panther at Kursk (July 5, 1943). It certainly held this title unchallenged by the Sherman and Churchill tanks that appeared during its reign, and probably by the Tiger as well.

The Tiger is a problem for this sort of discussion, because it re-introduces the concept of 'what for' into the debate. The Tiger was a far superior heavy infantry support or assault tank to the T34, but a far inferior battlefield manoeuvre or pursuit tank. In fact the Tiger was so slow and limited in cross country ability, that it was actually more effective as a defensive weapon once the Germans were thrown back on that approach, than it had been for re-igniting their Blitzkreig glory days.

Which brings up another debate worth considering. Heavy versus medium tanks, and their roles.

The vast majority of western books are fixated on the 'best' tank, perhaps on the assumption that a single tank that will do all jobs is the best solution. Certainly there are loud complaints in many textbooks about the British division of their armour into Infantry versus Cruiser tank formations. For some reason it is believed that this was a waste of resources, that could have been better spent on a 'compromise' tank that could do everything required.

It doesn't seem to occur to such critics that the technology levels of most nations for most of the war were to up to a genuine 'all purpose' tank. In the last days of the war, both the Americans and British rushed the new models to the front line. The American Pershing heavy tank had a very good 90 mm gun, and much better armour. It also unfortunately, had the same engine as the Sherman for much greater weight, so was as slow and difficult to manoeuvre as many of the underpowered German heavy tanks. It is not really an 'all purpose' design. By contrast to the British were moving the first of their Centurion tanks to the front line even as the war finished. The Centurion had an unrivalled balance of armour, gun, and manoeuvrability. Whereas the Pershing had a service life of only a few years, the Centurion is still in front-line service with several nations in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, including Israel which has used them in many wars. (The South Africans have just announced yet another upgrade to keep the Centurion at battle standards).

It should be noted though, that many people suggest that, technically, the first genuine all purpose tank – the Centurion – was actually a post war design, because the 6 operational tanks in Belguim when Germany surrendered had not actually engaged German tanks. (As opposed to the Pershing, the 20 operational examples having engaged German tanks at least twice…) This appears to be splitting hairs more than a bit considering the war continued for several more months in Asia against an opponent not worthy of redeploying Pershing's or Centurian's against – in fact incapable of facing even obsolescent Matilda's (Australians in New Guinea), Stuart's and Grant's (Burma). But it does reinforce the point that such designs were technically not possibly for most nations for most of the war.

The truth is that every nation that took tanks seriously in WWII had different categories of armoured vehicles. Every single one of them – French, German, Russian, Italian, British, American and even Japanese – had armoured cars for scouting; light tanks for more combat intensive reconnaissance and pursuit; medium tanks for open warfare and pursuit; and most had heavy tanks for infantry support and breakthroughs . (To be fair the Italians and Japanese never had heavy tanks…. and their mediums looked a bit 'light' by anyone else's standards.)

The writers who decry the British Infantry and Cruiser tank division seem unaware that almost everyone else had the same division. The Germans had Panzer III cruisers, and the early Panzer IV's with low velocity short barrelled guns as infantry support vehicles. Later this division was the Panther – whose 75mm high velocity high explosive shell lacked punch for anti-infantry or anti-artillery work – and the Tiger - the 88mm high explosive shell having much greater punch: but the principle was the same. The French had the Somua 35 for cruiser work, and the CharB for assault work. The Russians had a variety of heavy and medium tanks throughout the war on the same principles.

Only the Americans had a different division, with their preference being general purpose cruisers with low velocity 75's, and 'tank destroyers' with high velocity 76.2's, but based on pretty similar hulls. In some ways their division was prescient, in that the German 'Jagd' tank destroyers were just a more streamlined version of the same principle - heavier gun on specialist version of similar hull. But it left the Americans with a hole in the assault tank/infantry support category that was never adequately filled. (Whenever they needed heavy tanks to assault one of the fortified ports in France, it was the specialised Churchill's of General Hobart's 79th division that they had to call on.)

Having noted the necessary division between medium cruisers and heavy assault/infantry support tanks however, we can still make a fair summary.

So, in contrast to what many history books and documentaries will tell you, the French had the best tanks in 1939, and the British had the best tanks of 1940 and 1945. Also in contrast to what many history books will tell you, the Shermans effective front-line role can best be defined as the few months between the battle of Alamein, and the arrival of Tiger tanks in Tunisia. All attempts to use it after that in Italy or northern France just demonstrated how pathetic it was in modern engagements. Even the British Firefly version with the 17 pounder, was extremely vulnerable to any German tank. In fact it is amusing to note, that they came into their own for the blitzkrieg across open country in pursuit of the defeated German armies across France; which has a direct parallel to the inferior German tanks pursuing the defeated French in 1940. (The equally inadequate British Cromwell tanks, being significantly faster, were actually still better at this pursuit than the Shermans.) The best tank of the Sherman's period of functional use, of course being the T34.So our list of 'best tanks' could go something like this.1939 - Best cruiser - Somua 35, Best support - CharB.1940 - Best support becomes Matilda II.1941 - Best cruiser initially Panzer III/IV with short 50mm guns, becomes T34 when Russia enters the war.1942 - Best support is Tiger.1943 - Best cruiser is Panther.1944 - Best support is Tiger II.1945 - Best 'all purpose' is Centurion.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Major General Sir Percy Hobart is a much
under-considered, and under-appreciated general in the history of World War Two.
Partly because he was a bit of a nutter, and partly because the limited action
he did see is hard to assess.

Nonetheless Hobart was
one of the most important technical and tactical developers of Allied armour
techniques, and was responsible for training the famed 7th Armoured Division (the Desert Rats) for its early Blitzkreigs in North Africa (though he didn’t get to lead it into
battel); for training the outstanding 11th Armoured Division –
probably the best British armoured division of the D-Day to Germany campaign
(though he didn’t get to lead it into battle); and developing and leading the
extraordinary 79th armoured division (Hobart’s Funnies) through that
vital campaign. Liddell Hart said this 'hat trick' of the 3 best British armoured

divisions of the war alone made him incomparable, let alone his influence on armour overall.

In between Hobart’s
influence on the development of tank design, tank tactics, tank training
schools, and the principles of all arms combined operations, meant that his
impact on Allied tank forces during the war was probably greater than just
about anyone else's. (Guderian too kept track of his writings throughout the interwar period, hiring someone personally to do the translations.)

Hobart’s background
was as an army engineer, who learned his craft in India in the first years of
the 20C. But his first significant role was as a combat engineer on the front
line in France in 1915, where he expereinced the waste of bad plannig and
leadership. This was reinforced immensely when he was transferred to the war
against the Turks in what is now Iraq. Here he saw the nadir of bad planning
and leadership in action, and here he developed his wilingness to speak boldly
about things above his theoreticla pay grade.

His key lesson learned
from the trench and desert fighting of WWI was that good planning and surprise
were far more importnt than weight of numbers , attrition, or ‘porridge making’
artillery barrages. He also learned to value skill and potential over presumed
experience and caution, and became keen on pushing the best candidates to
higher ranks faster (rather than waste too much young talent in more exposed
leadership roles before it could advance to a role to make a real difference).

Hobart’s war
experience became more happy when the War Office finally got sick of the
inadequate older generals India command was sending to Iraq, and forcibly
imposed the young and energetic Major General Stanley Maude. Maude was one of
those rare new officers, who was actually a Staff College graduate (at a time
when few were). He was an enthusiastic and well read professional, very hard
working, and dedicated to centralised control and training. As Hobart’s
biographer Kenneth Macksey put it in Armoured Crusader ‘here was a man Hobart
could emulate’.

Students of the later
stage of the war against the Turks under Maude, and then under Allenby, will
note that incompetence and inertia was replaced with professionalism and mobility.
Hobart was at the forefront of this improvement, and his work with improving
the effectiveness of cavalry and logistical movement brought him into early
contact with the new motorised tracked gun tractors that would inspire him to
throw his energy into tanks from that time on.

But his experience
with swift advance also led him to emphasise the importance of close contact
with the front, and to realise the flaws of that close contact seperating the
middle commmanders too far from the rear commanders. On one notable occasion in
Palestine, there is supposed to be a time when Hobart blocked a belated change
of orders being passed ot the front line when he feared they would do more harm
than good. After the attack had gone through successfully in its original plan,
he is supposed to have indicated that the risk of distant and untimely
intervention would have been very negative. There appears to be no recorded
record of this event in British army files, but it was nonetheless a commonly
held belief amongst many officers that it really happened. Whether it did or
not, it was exactly the sort of thing that everyone believed that Hobart would
do if he felt it necessary. After all, it is exactly the sort of behaviour that
was to cause him repeated problems with his superiors through the interwar
period.

After volunteering to join the Tank Corps in 1923, Hobart spent much of
the interwar period vying with Lidell Hart as the prophet of the new armoured
forces, but with two differences. First, whereas Liddell-Hart was dedicated to
armoured striking power as a deciding factor on its own, Hobart was dedicated
to effective combined arms operations as the best deployment of armoured power.
Second, whereas Captain Lidell-Hart retired from the army and preached from
outside, Lt-Colonel Hobart’s campaigning continued within the army.

After completeing
Staff College with the likes of (later Field Marshall’s) Wilson, Wavell and
Brooke: he was on the staff at Quetta. Here instructor Hobart put together the
true list of elements needed for armour to succeed: light tanks for
reconnaissance, medium tanks for general purpose, heavy tanks for
breakthroughs, artillery carriers and infantry transporters (both prefferably
tracked and armoured if possible), tanks to act as communication centres and
command posts, mine layers, minesweepers, gas and smoke producers… these were
the things he wanted. Plus integrated air support and logisitics and repair
facilities that could keep up. (Those knowledgeable about ‘Hobart’s Funnies’
will note that by 1944 he was actually producing AVRE’s and engineer tanks, as
well as bridgelayers and flail and fascine carriers, and flame throwing tanks,
and amphibious tanks and anti-aircraft tanks, and everything his heart would
have desired for 1939. But it would take four or five years of war to loosen
the government’s purse strings and the weaken the inertia of senior officer
opposition… in peacetime it was pipedream stuff.)

One interesting point
to note is that Hobart’s sister married another Lt-Colonel in the late 1920’s
and brought Hobart a brother-in-law called Bernard Montgomery. Monty was enough
junior to Hobart, and an infantry specialist to boot, that he later admitted
that he was well behind Hobart’s understanding of combined arms… “militarily I
had not yet grown up”. But this was to bring into limited conjunction the two
outstanding trainers and developers of tactics of the British army for World
War Two at a time when Hobart’s ideas were fully developed, but still seemed
dangerously radical to the more conservative Montgomery.

One success of the
army in the late 1920’s over the politicians who were trying to disarm, and
scrap ‘offensive weapons’ like bombers and tanks via fanciful ‘treaties’, was
the Experimental Armoured Force. Hobart served as a staff officer in this, and
he and Lt-Colonel Pile (later to command AA command in WWII), pushed the
formation to impressive results considering its somewhat ramshackle structure.
Hobart was offered a permanent position on the staff as a result, but he turned
it down believeing he could pressure for even more outside the restrictions of
the unit.

Unfortunately Hobart’s
crusading spirit (he made Montgomery and even Wingate look very moderate
indeed); and tendency to treat professional disagreement as personal emnity
(bringing him into sometimes unnecessary dispute with Wilson, Wavell and Brooke
amongst many others): led to entirely too many opportuntities for more
conservative elements to sideline him, and feel justified when he railed
against his enemies undermining his vision. In propaganda terms he was his own
worst enemy.

His consistent refusal
to allow armour to be downplayed simply meant that he was eventually bypassed
in rank, not only by his contemporaries, but also by many juniors (like
Montgomery). In some ways he was lucky to be selected and assigned to create and
perfect the 7th Armoured division in Egypt in time for it to win the most
outstanding – and one of the few –of Britains early wartime victories. But his disfavour amongst his
contemporaries saw Wilson request his replacment, and Wavell (whose wife notoriously
disliked the scandal Hobart had created a decade earlier by running off with
another Indian army officers wife and marrying her) forcibly retire him before
it went into action.

In fact Churchill was
later to warn Brooke – specifically in regard to the employment of Hobart –
that the army could not afford to dismiss every forward thinkier just because
he had detractors in the old boys network. Churchill had been looking for an
armoured warfare expert, and was shocked to discover that Britain’s leading
exponent had been sacked and left to recreate himself as a Corporal in the Home
Guard (and later a deputy area organiser).

Churchill insisted
Hobart be brought back, at which point Hobart promptly refused Churchills’ suggested
role of inspector of armoured formations because he wanted a more significant
role of cammander of all armour created. In the end Hobart had to settle for 11th
Armoured Division command under Montgomery’s Corps level command.

The inspector
of armour role was therefore given to the self confessed ‘inadequate leadership’ of Giffard Le Quesne Martel instead. Martel had been a visionary along with Fuller and Liddell-Hart in the 1920's, and had often worked with Hobart in the 1930's, but he lacked Hobart's drive. His most interesting impact on WWII was to organise the British armoured counterattack at Arras which drove Rommel's Panzer division back 8 miles before running out of steam. he could have been a very good armoured commander, but his overly cautious impact on churchill's 'tank-parliaments' may have contributed to delaying the ‘catch up’ of
British armoured units (11th Armoured excepted of course) for a
couple of crucial years.

Nonetheless Hobart’s
work behind the scenes continued to have impact. 11th Armoured
became the benchmark of operational skill, and after the breakout from the
Normandy beachhead, 11th armoured ran – according to some – the
fastest advances in the history of warfare. Faster than Patton’s army to their
south in France (who had a theoretically easier run with less opposition), and
faster than Hobart’s original formation – 7th armoured – against the
Italians in North Africa.

By the end of the war
the standard British armoured division looked suprisingly like the design of
integrated arms that Hobart had been promoting in the 1920’s.

Meanwhile Hobart,
having been deprived of command of 11th armour before it was sent
into action, was only sweet-talked into raising and training 79th
Armoured division, and then converting it to specialist use, on condition that he would actually get to lead it into
action.

In practice the
division never served as a division, but its elements were so widely employed in
France that it became by far the biggest armoured division of the war, with
over 7000 vehicles, including more than 2200 armoured vehicles. It played a distinguished, and possibly vital,
role in Allied victory. The ‘funnies’ that Hobart developed and trained for
action became central to the success of various operations that could easily
have failed. D-Day for instance.

Much is made of
‘Bloody’ Omaha in many histories, even though surprisingly little is made of
the fact that the Canadians took proportionally almost as many casualties in
their theoretically harder fight to breakthrough at Juno. The main difference
of course being that Bradley had rejected all the specialist armour that
Hobart’s funnies offered to the Americans (except for a few amphibious tanks),
whereas the Canadians made copious use of them. The Canadians were also to run
straight into the only German Armoured divisioin to counter-attack on D-Day
(the 21st Panzer, which
managed to block the British capture of Caen), and handily defeated its attempt
to break back through to the beaches. If the 21st Panzer had
attacked the Americans instead, their chances of a successful breakthrough to the beaches would have been
greatly improved by the inadequacy of the available armoured support in the area.

For the rest of the
war in Europe Hobart’s Funnies were constantly called upon by both British and
American commanders to solve otherwise impossible problems. The Churchill flail
tanks, flamethrower tanks, and AVRE’s were particularly useful against German
fortified ports, regularly demonstrating their ability to cross terrain that
was impassable to other Allied tanks, and take punishment that other Allied
tanks coud not face. Hobart’s units became the go to ‘fire brigade’ for almost
everyone.

Biographers of Hobart,
while giving thanks for his influence on armoured affairs, are torn on how he
would have performed in combat. There can be little doubt that his armoured
division would have run rings around any other of the British or Italian or
Japanese army, and probably also of the American or Russian army. Whether it
would have matched, or surpassed, German armoured divisions is the debate? some have suggested Hobart was Britain's Rommel. Many others have suggested Hobart was actually Britain’s Guderian, and would have made easy
conquests of the far less experienced Rommel in North Africa. An intriguing but
completely hypothetical concept.

By contrast, many
others have commented, with equal justification, that Hobart was a somewhat
unstable and emotional visionary, who may have gone off the handle at the wrong
time and damaged his own career and campaigns. (Patton being inspirational and still
managing to shoot his own career in the foot, being their comparison.)

Both viewpoints are
just.

So how do we rate
Hobart as a general?

First, he was the
paramount Allied proponent and trainer of armoured forces. Of that there is little
doubt. He was an excellent divisional commander, and had few equals in the war
on this front. So we can certainly say he was an above average 2 star general
despite his rancourous relationship with some of his seniors.

Second, his influence
on the eventual composition and role of armoured units is hard to ignore, but
the idea that he would have been an effective commander of 'all armour' is a bit
scary. As an ‘inspector’ he would undoubtedly have been far better than Martel, but he refused such a role in the purity of his idealised search
for a freestanding Armoured Army. Such a plan was anathema to Brooke when he
was CIC of the home garrison, and even more so when he was CIGS. As some sort
of armoured supremo, Hobart would have possibly been a dangerously
destabilising influence on the overall army. (Should we mention a godlike self righteousness delusion… MacArthur comparison?) So we can
suggest he would have been very problematical as a 4 star general, certainly in
1941, despite his undoubted skills.

The question whether
he would have developed into a good corps commander (3 star in 1941-2) and
possibly a good army commader (4 star in 1943-4) thereafter, had he taken the slow
learning through combat route that Montgomery or Slim went through (from divisional
command in 1940) is the real question. Perhaps he would have been better (as a
commander), and also worse (as a subordinate), than Montgomery? Or perhaps he
would not have made it that far, by destroying his career even more finally
than Patton managed?

What can be said with reasonable
confidence, is that he would not have made a good Supreme Commander or CIGS. His
temperamanet was even less suited to this role than Montgomery or Patton’s.

Frankly, without
seeing him in combat, we cannot really rate him as a combat leader.

Still, we can be very
grateful that he did the hard thinking in the 1920’s (when few were visionary);
the proof of concept in the 1930’s (when few others – even in the German army – were following his lead); developed the
first practical expression in the stunningly successful 7th armoured
(a unit certainly on a par with the Panzers in France); influenced the ongoing
development of all British armour from there (dragging them up to a level
suitable to compete with the battle hardened Panzers in time for the invasion of France); and
made the breakthroughs in specialist armour that vastly reduced Allied
casualties in the final campaigns.

The concept of Socialism is a pretty good idea. It believes that
there should be a safety net to support the needy.

No problem there. Anybody with a Judaeo-Christian or Buddhist
based code of morality is more or less behind the ideas of simple charity and
'do unto others' bit that underpins social fairness.

(Theoretically Animism can also approach this concept, but like
most other 'tribal' religions - from Marxist to Muslim to Labour to Greenie -
the specificity of the 'them versus us component' makes this a bit problematical in application...
And please note that there are many supposed Jews or Christians who have fallen
into the trap of tribalism, and many Muslims or Marxists who honestly believe
they can avoid tribalism without abandoning the tenets of their religion...
None of them seem to have a clue about what their professed beliefs actually
require of them.)

But I digress.

Socialism as an ideal of providing a safety net and an
opportunity is a wonderful thing, and I, and many others, would fight to
maintain that safety net.

Socialism as a political movement pursuing 'equality' however, is
one of the great evils of human invention.

Humans cannot be made equal, no matter how ruthlessly this is
attempted. Humans can be given equality of opportunity, but thy cannot be
'made' to be equal. (The best image of this recently was in the Joss Whedonfilm 'Firefly' where the government wants to create 'a world without sin',and
where they will keep idealistically trying to make people 'better', no matter
how appalling the results of their experiments.)

People who profess to be socialists in the last century include
Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and just about every nasty
dictatorship currently operating in Africa or South America. (Some of the nasty
dictatorships in the Middle East and Africa and Asia - from Iran to Somalia to
South Korea - are blatant religious dictatorships... but again with a tribal
perspective, not any Judaeo-Christian concepts.)

Now, obviously, the answer there is that just because people say
they are socialists, does not mean they really are. Politicians lying about
their real motives to fool the gullible is about as traditional as it gets.

But there are many politicians who say they are socialist who really
mean it. Unfortunately their definition of socialism is so distorted, that I
find them far more dangerous the obvious liars.

Socialism as proposed by most of the political parties with the
word 'socialist' in their title usually just means dictatorship under a cloak
of respectability that they hope the ignorant peasants and stupid media will
fall for. Anything called a ‘Soviet Socialist Republic’
or just a ‘Socialist Republic’ will inevitably fit this box…
eventually.

There is an excellent and amusing section in one of Robert
Heinlein's worse books – Time Enough for Love – that defines politicians.

Heinlein says there are basically two types of politicians,
Business, and Conviction. Business politicians rely on keeping their word, as
their only saleable asset. They live or die politically by delivering or not
delivering.

Conviction politicians by contrast, 'believe' in a 'cause'. They
believe so passionately, that they can be easily convinced to change their
promises by any new 'idea' or 'evidence' that comes along (at least if it fits
their prejudices). The truly dangerous thing about such people is not that they
reverse themselves 3 times before breakfast, but that each time they convince
themselves (or at least can pretend to), that they are doing it for the 'good'
of the people and cause they 'believe' in.

As a result they are more than willing to look their constituents
(who are not necessarily the voters) in the eye, and claim their reversals were
a genuine attempt to reach the goal that everyone is striving for... for the
greater good of course.

The simple fact is that ‘business’ and ‘conviction’ politicians
usually cannot understand each other's rationales or motives, as they are
almost completely incomprehensible to them. Instead they both tend to assume
that anyone with the opposite perspective is either mad, or just completely
dishonest and working for completely different motives than their stated ones.

(Unfortunately, people being people, they will be right in enough
cases to allow them the luxury of painting everyone they do not understand with
the same broad stroke of tar. This sort of lazy self righteousness is what
forms the basis of 'them and us' thinking, and is the bane of all political
compromise through human history.)

It would be nice to think that willingness to change a viewpoint
is part of education or just growing up. The amusing aphorism "If you're
not a socialist at 20 you don't have a heart, if you're still a socialist at 40
you don't have a brain", would be less scary if it actually reflected a
consistent pattern... but it doesn't.

The vast majority of humanity takes the childhood illusion they
grew up with as unreflected gospel for their entire life, and is appalled that
anyone could dare to disagree. (I use the word 'gospel' here with malice
aforethought. The unreflecting religious being almost as dangerous as the
unreflecting atheist in taking the most simplistic and childish understanding
of their preferred viewpoint and trying to bludgeon everyone else with it.
Religious wars are bad enough, the ‘crusades’ by Fascists and Marxists in the last
century have added new meaning to repression and genocide.)

Reflection from adult understanding (particularly after the brain
reaches the age of considering consequences at about 24 or 25... not at the
extreme of idealistic illusion at University age of about 18 to 21) is
absolutely vital to making a childhood preference into a reasoned position.
Pity so few people take the time to do it...

One of the dangers of our democratic political system is that we
let people start playing 'seriously' with politics at exactly the worst age.
Political parties collecting university students is like shooting fish in a
barrel, but the modern practice of recruiting them to the party structure in a
straight line –student politician, political
staffer, party professional, safe seat –
(with no real life experience to intervene), means that many modern
politicians do not get the mental space to reflect on what they think they
believe in until several years in office trying and failing to deliver their
childish ideal finally convinces them that they were either very wrong, or at
least very naive.

Unfortunately this can then have it's own problems. You sometimes
get the overly simplistic from both sides responding to the discovery of the
unreality of what they were attempting by veering widely (and almost equally
unreflectingly) to the opposite perspective... Such people often adopt equally
(or even more scarily) unrealistic simplifications of a world view. (In
Australia the most famously pathetic example is the ex-Liberal Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser, but 'reborn' ex socialists or communists are often even more
worrying in their fanaticism!)

Or, perhaps worse, they simply decide that they will keep
mouthing the words they don't believe in any more, in a ruthless attempt to get
power... Not that they really want to achieve anything particular any more...
just get power.

So how to choose the lesser of two evils?

1. Given a choice of politicians who 'believe' unreflectingly in
childish idealism, always go for the conservative, not the radical. It will
slow progress to a pathetic crawl, but there will be a lot less bloodshed. (Shedding blood is necessary sometimes, but conservative reasons
like 'defence of traditional liberties' –
aka English or American Revolutions –
is always better than blood shed to 'save the world and remake it in
perfection' aka French or Communist revolutions, or almost any religious
war...)

2. Given the choice of politicians who genuinely believe, after
genuine adult reflection, they are working for the common good, again you
should always go for the business one not the conviction one... you may not
like the result, but it will at least it may resemble what they were originally
talking about.

3. Give the choice between politicians who only pretend to believe
in what they are promoting, go for the business politician anyway. They may
only be in it to line their pockets and enjoy the fruits of power, but, because
they live or die by keeping heir word, they will only stay in it by making the
trains run on time. Corrupt but competent is always going to do less damage to
the society than well meaning but incompetent.

A 'true believer' is always going to throw public money at
anything that sounds good anyway, and is always surprised the result is often
the opposite of what was intended. (Education 'improvements' that lead to mass
illiteracy; workplace 'improvements' that lead to mass unemployment'; health
'improvements' that lead to failing hospitals; etc.) But a cynic pretending to
be a true believer stays in power despite incompetence by throwing money at
things they know won't work just to claim they are doing something. (And to buy
voted of course... but they all do that...)

4. But given the choice between two socialists: one of whom says
they accept the world is imperfect, but believe in the justice of a safety net;
and one of whom really truly believes that equality in all things is both
desirable and achievable... go for the sane one. The raving lunatic can only
finish one of two ways. Disillusioned and corrupt, or so convinced in their
cause that they eventually have to make themselves all powerful to make it
happen because they can find no other way. (Stalin and HItler are great example
of the first, and Cromwell and Mao are fun examples of the second. And note, I
have chosen supposedly ‘right’ and supposedly ‘left’ versions in both samples to make the
appropriate mockery of ‘right’ versus ‘left’.)

It is probable that through history the majority of so called
Socialists who have achieved and grimly maintained power until their society
collapses under the dead weight of extreme socialism (as Churchill said, 'the problem
is they eventually run out of other people's money') have been the first...
just corrupt shadows of their original so called beliefs. This would include
almost any socialist government elected over too long periods in Southern and
Eastern Europe (and Ireland, which counts as 'southern') or in Central or South
America. They just slowly drag their countries down to a level of poverty and
violence that it was their stated intention to replace with their idealised
utopia. (Prime examples of mouthing without meaning would include Stalin, the
Castro's, Chavez, and the current dynasty in North Korea.)

The real problem though, is the ones who continue to believe in
their dream, and are willing to do whatever it takes, including seizing all
power for themselves, to see it happen. Cromwell, Robespierre, Lenin, Mao, Pol
Pot, Idi Amin, Mugabe, and Adolf Hitler are all 'conviction' socialists (almost
all of them with some sort of claim to be elected leaders of republican forms
of government) who took their societies to the extremes they felt were
necessary to achieve the purity they genuinely believed in...

Historically, socialism for the goal of a safety net will
inevitably reduce the overall living standards, education, employment, and
opportunities, of a society... but not necessarily destroy it completely. (Or
at least not yet, in the cases of places like Scandinavia which are
back-pedalling fast on the excesses that reduced the PIIGS –Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece
and Spain - to basket cases with up to 50% youth unemployment). It can even be
argued that some of this equalisation might be a good thing, but the long term
reduction of living standards over the admittedly less pleasant chaos of more
free flowing capitalism is the inevitable price.

But historically Socialism for the goal of a fantasy ideal of
universal equality and wealth will lead to the nastiest and most bloody
dictatorships in human history. (On a scale that would make even a tribal
barbarian lunatic like Genghis Khan green with envy.)

If you love the idea of 'safety net socialism', as I do, and are
willing to accept a limited diminution in overall living standards to achieve
it: be very, very afraid of the 'ideal' of 'perfect Socialism'. The more people
unreflectingly pursue an impossible dream, the less chance the reflecting have
of achieving some sort of reality.

About Me

A professional historian and educator challenges some assumptions.
(A sometimes tongue-in-cheek polemic, with a Socratic emphasis on challenging people to argue back. Please do so... I make some of it outrageous largely to encourage a debate).